Sleep on it
by The Possum
Summary: basically inspired by Fight Club, not directly about any of the characters. feedback REALLY apreciated, hope you like it


I opened my eyes, blinked. A car drove past on the street below; it's headlights filling my room with an eerie glow. It was three-thirty am. An insomniacs world, my world. Lack of sleep joins the world of the dead with the world of the living. The glazed look in my eyes, the fumbled existence, never really there. 

Rolling over, I stared at the wall. It might as well have been my foetal position. Lying there sprawled out and entangled in the covers, staring at the wall. In exactly five hours my alarm would go off. I would roll out of bed and stumble to the bathroom, still trailing my duvet behind me. Me in my boxers, thin, pale, face darkened with stubble. What dying people look like.

Taking the routine journey to work I would look about the carriage, normal people everywhere. People who sleep, but there, in the corner, wedged between the business slime and the greasy teenager, she's one of us. Her eyes glazed over. Her breakfast down her front. She was awake at three-thirty that morning too. You can tell who sleeps and who doesn't. You can tell who thinks they have problems and who really does. The trademark signs are always there; you just have to know what they are before you can look for them. 

I missed my stop again. Half asleep, almost there. Maybe I would have fallen asleep if I'd had a seat, guess I'll never know. Tripping off the train I made a promise that that night would be different, that I would sleep that night.

I'd been lying there for two hours. I was still awake. There were one thousand seven hundred and nineteen flowers on the ceiling wallpaper. The one thing I couldn't have and it was plaguing me, as if I could think about nothing else. Sleep. 

I used to fake snoring in the vain hope that it might help me to fall asleep, it never did. 

And so I finally gave up. Accepting my fate I began to go out at night, "pounding the pavement" as they say. Walking the streets.

I began to notice things I'd never noticed before. In the gloom everything looked different. Not sinister as I had expected, softer. The yellow streetlights cast everything in an amber glow. 

The roads were quiet, the streets almost empty. It was my world. I was awake, but it didn't bother me anymore. All the insomniacs come out at night. My people. Strange to think that the man walking on the other side of the road, shuffling along shoulders hunched, is like you. 

It was raining that morning. Soft rain. If I closed my eyes into thin slits it glowed. The yellow from the streetlights reflecting in it, casting the world in a veil of gold. I held out my hands, half expecting them to fill with metallic beads of the rain. Instead it just ran through my fingers, escaping from me.

That must have been how she first saw me. My face upturned to the skies, eyes closed, letting the water flow down my face. It didn't feel wet anymore, as it had at first. I'd known it was coming as I caught the first drop on my nose, as it dripped to my upper lip another pearl fell on my cheek. 

I didn't notice her at first. On any other day I would have, but the rain had distracted me, taken me to another place, it might have been the insomnia that let me, it might just have been me. 

As the rain slowed, I tried to watch each of the last fragile drops fall to the ground. When I was certain that the last drop had fallen I began to look around me again; it was then that I saw her. Standing under the streetlight, leaning against the lamppost. Eyes bright and alert, glancing around, never resting for more than a second, until they met mine. I stood, staring back at her, aware of my own bloodshot eyes. Hers were not the eyes of an insomniac.

As a car drove past her face was illuminated in the harsh white light. The gentle wind that had replaced the rain blew back her hair revealing a perfect black eye. Marbled blues and blacks blending gradually into her pale skin. She smiled sheepishly, aware that I knew her secret. Her hand automatically moved to her face, fiddling with her hair, casting the fragile skeleton of her cheekbones into shadow once more.

She wasn't out here because she couldn't sleep. I felt sorry for her, out here alone in the dark, no one to hold her and no one to love her. 

The moment passed from awkward to uncomfortable, but still I stood there, transfixed. She stood too, her back arched against the grime-covered metal of the lamppost. Her hair, wet from the rain, was plastered to her head and her grubby coat pulled up tight around her nose. The tiny girl in front of me; so small, so young, so alone.

Hi' she said. The silence was too much for her. A moment longer and I would have cracked too.

Hi' I croaked back, my voice box juddering into action after days of dumbness. I never spoke anymore, no one ever heard me anyway, so why waste the effort.

She heard me, my feeble attempt at speech, so quiet, but she heard it. Silence again, constructing the next sentence in my head, the shuffle of feet. She spoke again, my perfectly formed sentence, moulded to perfection and ready to deliver, shattered as her voice sounded over an ambulance in the distance.

So, why are you out so late?'

Why _was_ I out? I didn't need to be; there was nothing so bad at home that I felt I had to leave. I realised I hadn't replied. Maybe there was a reason I was out here, mind racing, all sense scrambled; she gazed patiently at me. Could she see I was thinking?

Wait, there was a reason I was out here: the blank patch on the wall, the mangled duvet at the foot of the bed every morning. The bloodshot monster staring back at me from deep in the mirror.

I'm an insomniac'

Oh'

Yep' and the silence was back. She pushed herself up from the post, and began to walk. Was I meant to follow? About three metres away she stopped, turned round and grinned. All teeth, her swollen eye grazed with creases. I jogged to catch up. Who was this girl? 

She was walking fast, each step aching to turn into a sprint. I kept lagging behind and every fifty metres or so she would stop and spin round, still smiling. I began to think she might be teasing me, leading me into a trap. But then I wasn't the little girl with a black eye. I kept following, taking giant steps and every time I got close to her she would bound away again. 

I guess I kind of liked her. In a sympathetic way. She was like me. Lost. Searching for something but you don't know what. Empty.

Outside a run down coffee shop she skidded to a halt.

Fluorescent lights shining on cheap plastic. Wood shining through the paint on tables wiped too much. 

She swung open the door and stepped in. I followed her and was met by a thick wall of heat, stale air, fried onion smell. I peered up at the ceiling. Could I actually see a layer of grease or was it my imagination. Was the insomnia winning? 

If you're having a coffee, I'll have one too'

Coffee? What? I paid for her coffee and we sat down. Watching her caress the cheap mug, I half expected it to shatter into tiny snowflakes of china. But it didn't. The silence was back, echoing in my ears. She ran a finger round the top of the mug. I stifled a yawn. No matter how long you have insomnia for, there's always that hope that you're tired enough to fall asleep. The glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel suggesting, for just a moment, that when your head touches the pillow it doesn't mean insomnia, it means sleep. It doesn't mean you do sleep though, it's just there, at the back of your mind, annoying you. Sleep.

You're quiet.' She said gently. 

Just not used to people waiting to hear me speak' I worked in an office, forty-four floors and I was on the forty-second. Writing reports for computer programmes, capturing perfect moments of boredom and preserving them. Why would I want this job? I wouldn't. But it paid; it allowed me to go on living in my nice house in my nice neighbourhood with the nice people. I talk through emails at work. Re: see attachment for data analysis. And even then you're talking in tongues, the language of technology, not real talk. My boss probably doesn't even know my name.

I'm not waiting. Just observing'

What did that mean? 

Oh'

Well thanks for the coffee, I should get going' and then she did. She got up, adjusted her skirt and left. I picked up her coffee mug, the handle broke off. No china snowflakes. Just the mug on the table and my hand above it, holding the handle.

It was the next day. I was sitting at my desk and the boss walked past. He walked past with his fixed smile. Faked, hollow. Does he smile like that at home, with his wife and children, I know he has them, there's a picture in his office. Two kids beaming from the groomed mother's knee. Does he smile like that to them, do they notice? 

I glared at his back in an attempt to gain some pride over the situation. I hate him; I don't know why I just do. What really gets to me is that he doesn't seem to hate me back, he just smiles. But then again maybe it's not a smile, maybe it's a smirk. An I'm getting paid twice as much as you' look. Either way, I still hate him and his expensive suits with his expensive cufflinks, and the smile.

I looked down at my desk and there was a pile of papers that wasn't there before he walked past. He must have put it there while I was seething with envy. And now I had to work knowing that his office had air con and my five-foot square block had nothing but a desk, a computer and one of those plastic waste paper baskets. The one in his office was metal and oozing with class. Even his bin annoys me.

Work finished an hour later than it was meant to and two hours after I stopped getting paid. Taking the tube back home, buying a paper, walking down my road past the blind homeless woman who always says hi'. Even over the traffic she manages to hear me coming, out of the hundred of footsteps that go past everyday she say's hi to me. I dropped a coin into her lap and immediately felt guilty that I hadn't bent down and put it into her cupped hands. 

Thanks' she called as I opened the door to my house and flicked a light on.

You're Welcome' my first words of the day as I gently shut the door and slid the latch into place.

Shoes off, coat over the radiator, pulling my tie loose. I flicked the TV on and walked through to the kitchen. I could feel the carpet give way to the tiles through my socks. 

It wasn't a big house. Two floors with two bedrooms, I expect my boss could fit my whole house into his garage. 

The murmur of the TV came through to the kitchen where I was putting a ready-made meal into the oven. It was the news, that sincere sounding voice, you can tell its not good news. But then it never is, is it?

Pulled the plastic carton of e-numbers out of the oven, burning my hand. The rattle of cutlery as I rummaged through the drawer keeping one eye on a tabby that was carefully padding through the grass in the back garden. It's eyes glowing in the dark, they reminded me of the girl. Bright, alert, stalking its prey as she had stalked me. 

I'd thought about her the night before. After she'd left the café and I'd broken the mug a woman had come over to me. Trainers, apron and bright red lipstick.

You'll have to pay for that you know' and she took the mug from the table, the handle from my hand and pottered off. I didn't have the strength to argue so I left a five-pound note on the table and left. I had known the girl would have been long gone, but it didn't stop me peering to both ends of the dark street before I began to make my way home. 

I lay in bed and thought about her, storing every detail of her fragile body in my head, afraid of missing anything that could be important. I wasn't sure if I liked her for being there or hated her for leaving. I ended up being frustrated with myself and my ambiguous feelings. I hoped I'd see her again and knew I never would. I imagined taking her hand and leading her back to the same café, showing I'd remembered, but I knew I never would. It was as if the same part of my brain that stopped me sleeping was active, nagging me, teasing me for thinking about her and yet keeping me awake and leaving me no other option.

I slumped down in a chair with my ready-meal. Chicken Kiev, aeroplane food, fake like my boss's smile. The newsreader was talking about a girl that had been found in the canal, dead. I hadn't looked up. I didn't care, a million of people have been found in that canal, no hopers with nothing else to do but take a swim. 

But then, maybe just a quick glance, a sneaked look at who had clocked out.

A toothy grin stared back at me from the screen. 

The newsreader was still talking but I couldn't hear what she was saying. Bright green eyes, pale skin, a big smile. I didn't need the black eye and grubby coat to know it was her. She'd killed herself. I swallowed a burning mouthful but it settled in my stomach ice cold. She was dead. No more glinting eyes, no more cheeky grin. Gone. The only person who had seen past my bloodshot eyes and sandpaper chin to the real me, the me that even I don't know about. And maybe I was the only one that had seen through her. Except I hadn't, I hadn't seen enough. I'd let her die.

I gazed at the screen until the picture was replaced by the newsreader

I found myself walking to the garden door. The cat had gone, so had the bird. And now she'd gone too. 

I stayed there, staring out into the dark. My breath, though I was sure I could never breath again, was frosting up the window. I drew a frowning face in the mist. It had started to rain; I knew it would be raining gold where we'd first met. It wasn't here but I could see small puddles forming on my uneven patio.

She was dead. I wonder how long her frail body had been floating in the canal before she was found. It must have been so cold. I closed my eyes as I sat down in the chair again the chicken Kiev was lukewarm, a good excuse not to eat it.

Work again. I could hardly take leave; I didn't even know her. Sure so I bought her coffee but how many people must have done that. She could have stood there night after night, watching people pass, waiting for someone she could get. Her prey. I was just that night's catch; she didn't pick me because she thought I was special, she picked me because I had that look about me. I was playing in the rain for chrissake,

A piece of cake' she must have thought. And there was me, feeling wanted. But now she was dead. She was dead, and I was alive. Look who was special now.

There was a crumpled piece of paper in my hand. I glanced around; no one was looking at me, everyone going about his or her own business. It took me a while to flatten it out. It was my boss's writing. Curly and showy; looped _L_s and complicated extravagant _G_s. Showy, him in a nutshell.

I hadn't read the note yet. It was still on the table. I hadn't mourned for her either. Shed a tear, felt anything that could be remotely like sorrow, regret. I felt empty, fragile. Just a hollow shell. Easily broken, I was on the edge. But I started to cry. The tears running down my cheeks, like the rain on the night I met her.

Blurry eyed I tried to read the note. Mourning over, I don't like to dwell on things. I needed to forget her, expel her from my thoughts. She had been my hope for a day but now she was gone. The light at the end of the tunnel extinguished.

The ink was smudged; he must have used a fountain pen, an expensive one with a gold nib, with running ink. I would have used biro. But then I'm not him.

I'd been fired. Through the blurry eyes and blurry writing I could make it out. 

He's very sorry, but it's not working out. I'm not fitting in. I don't seem to enjoy myself like the other members of staff. My work isn't up to scratch.

He'll give me one months pay of course. But could I please be gone by the end of the day.

I'd been fired with a note. He fired me with a note. And now he would be sitting in his office smiling as I put all my belongings in the bin. I decided it would be a real smile this time. Sly and smug. I opened my desk drawer: empty if it weren't for the unopened pack of fags at the back. My emergency rations. I'd actually given up smoking a year ago but it was nice to have them there, a safety net in case things got too much.

Cigarettes in breast pocket, lighter too, pen in bin. I unplugged the mouse from the keyboard and quickly stuffed it in my pocket. I didn't have a computer at home, but at least this way _he_ would need to pay for a new one. And oops, 

Sorry, I just spilt my drink' then I'm off. He'd need a new keyboard too; the old one was fizzing as I quickened my pace. Pressing the lift button I let myself think I was smelling smoke and took the stairs instead. It's nice to know I still have an imagination.

It took me a while to get to the bottom. Forty-two flights of stairs is quite a long way. I had planned for an extravagant burst into the fresh air. In reality I stumbled through the revolving doors, stitch, nausea and a firm resolve never to take part in any physical activity ever again.

I walked away from the crime scene and sat down on a park bench. I took out my Walkman and untangled the wires. Play. 

As I walked down the street my steps sank into the rhythm of the music. Walking in time with the beat, I always did that, it just seemed like the natural thing to do. I flicked to a quicker song, I didn't feel like walking slowly that day, too much adrenaline. As the music and I became one I felt my shoulders push bag, standing tall, scowling. Turning the volume up to a level I was sure passers by would be able to hear. I wanted them to hear it. I wanted to annoy people.

The blind woman wasn't there like she usually was. Her cardboard box and sleeping bag were in the corner with her sign. Some change would be nice but a smile would be better'

I'd never liked that sign. I usually smiled at all the homeless people I passed, but it made me feel guilty smiling to her. Cheated out of the warm feeling when she smiled back. I wasn't smiling because I wanted to I was smiling because a sign told me to.

And she was blind, why would a smile be better than change, she wouldn't see it, and why would she smile back. It had taken me a while, after I first moved into my house, to realise that she wasn't actually blind. At first I thought I was just imagining her head following me as I walked past, then I decided that it was following me, but it could have just been a coincidence. I had been tempted to stick my finger up at her to try and raise a response. Just to prove to myself she wasn't blind, to trick her.

I had never sworn at her in the end, and she wasn't there that day, but I flicked a pound into the corner with her stuff. 

Getting inside I remembered the cigarettes in my breast pocket. Fumbling with the plastic wrapper. I opened them and held them up, slowly breathing in the sweet smell. I took one out of the pack. Holding it between forefinger and thumb, I stared at it. Strange how such a small thing could cause so much trouble. 

There was a pack of matches in the back of the cupboard above the oven. Even on tip toes I had to stretch to reach it, blindly fumbling through the first aid book and other junk that was up there. Why the hell had I left them in such a stupid place? 

I felt the lighter in my pocket. Crap. 

One cigarette. Two cigarettes. I'd chain smoked two and a half before my mouth got too dry to go on. I stubbed out the rest of my third on the sideboard, leaving a burnt bullet hole in the plastic. 

Well that was it. The nicotine was in my blood now. I knew that I wouldn't quit again; not anytime soon. It's supposed to be easier the second time. But I doubted that it would be. I'd be out of my mind to go through the withdrawal symptoms again. The headaches, the cravings, the mood swings. 

My dad had died from smoking. Cancer to be precise, they never proved it was the tar that caused it. But when you're a twelve-year-old kid who's spent the last few years nagging your dad to quit you don't need proof. 

He'd taken my hand while he was lying in the hospital bed. Tubes and wires making him look more like an experiment than my dad. The monotonous bleep of a machine behind the metal bed frame. I didn't know why it was beeping but I knew it wasn't supposed to stop. His face was grey, fitting into the surroundings. I knew he was wasting away and my hand was small, cupped in his. His skin folded and rippled. It looked like crinkled paper, delicate and fascinating. I gnawed through my cheek trying not to cry. Boys don't cry. He'd taught me that.

Son' he was croaking. I was sure it was the beginning of a death rattle. He told me not to be like him. Don't worry I wouldn't I'd thought. He didn't say sorry though, he'd left me without saying sorry. 

Son'

I'm here dad' but my heart was somewhere else. It was back to when I'd flushed his cigarettes down the toilet and he'd got mad. It was back to when I bought him Niccorette gum for Christmas. He was pouring his heart out to me and I wasn't listening. 

I hated hospitals. They were always so clean, no evidence of life. Just death all around. The white walls and the little cleaner who would scuffle along the white floor with a mop and bucket, wiping away memories. They wiped away my dad when he died. 

Me? I'd made a plan; I always carried a permanent marker in my pocket. If I ever went into hospital I'd make a memory that couldn't be rubbed out or cleaned away.

I swept the cigarette ashes into my hand; my dad had died a week after my thirteenth birthday. Carried them to the bin, I hadn't been there. And blew them into the bag, I hadn't held his hand. I hated myself for that.

It's strange living by yourself. When you come in from outside and slam the door there's no one shouting welcome home from upstairs. There's no one to hear about the terrible traffic or the ghastly cashier in the newsagent.

The mess in the house, it's all yours. You can't blame the dirty dishes on anyone else. 

I didn't mind it though, the quietness. Knowing that the only sounds made would be mine. When I had first moved in I found the wooden floors uncomfortable. My footsteps seemed too loud in such a quiet space. I would tiptoe around trying to make as little sound as possible, wincing if anything rose above a certain decibel. I'd continued to tiptoe after I got carpet put in, more out of habit than anything else. 

I'd tiptoed to the door when it rang. Peering through the peephole a distorted face grinned back at me. The me that had been employed on the forty-second floor of an office block would have opened the door with a slight smile and been polite and courteous when I directed the visitor to the house three doors down.

Oh no, you want the Edwins' no one ever visited me they're number forty-eight'

But not on that day. That day I would frown, my brow would furrow and one glare from me would wilt a flower, curdle milk. 

It was the blind woman. I smiled, she had her sign tucked under her arm and to disobey it seemed cruel. 

She smiled back. Her teeth showing through her thin lips like a mouthful of pebbles. Black and rotting, they were almost rattling freely about her bleeding gums.

She was in a sorry state that day. Her long silver hair matted like a mass of cobwebs.

We were still smiling at each other and I was beginning to feel that she expected me to say something. Except that I didn't have anything to say. I peered past her to the street below, it was quiet and the air was warm. I could smell cooking from a few doors down; it was probably the Edwins. They were the sort of family that cooked. My fridge was an organised collection of boxed and dated ready-prepared meals. There's would have colourful jars of jam, vegetables in bright colours, fruit juice.

The blind woman had stopped smiling and the uneasy feeling was beginning to subside from my throat back into my stomach. 

She jerked her arm up towards my face. I stepped back so as to focus on the small object in her hand. Peering down my nose to where her grimy hand was held out, shaking uncontrollably, I made out a perfectly round stone. 

Her hand was still shaking so I took it and held it between forefinger and thumb, and we still hadn't said anything. 

'I thought you could put it on your window sill' her speech was breathy and she hissed as she said sill, her teeth not withstanding the sound. 'Your windows always look so dull'

I nearly leant out to look at my neighbour's window. It had white curtains, just like mine. It was 'dull' just like mine. I didn't see how the stone was going to make it any less dull. Unless it was some obscure form of Feng Sui. Place a rock on your windowsill and feel the healing energy. Though I doubted it very much. 'I found it in the road'

I didn't see how this was exciting at the time. But the grin on her face suggested that it was. 

'And I thought you could put in on your window sill' How old was she? 'Your windows always look dull'

'Thank you' I said a little too loudly, 'I'll put it on my windowsill. It's a wonderful idea.'

Fake talk. Fake smile. I was turning into my boss, sorry ex-boss 'Thank you.'

'You're welcome' she stuttered back. 'Good bye' and with that she stumbled back down my steps, down my path and off my property. She shuffled about three metres down the road to her things and sat down.

I shut the door slowly and went to put the rock on my windowsill. She was right; it was dull. Just like me. Plain, boring, dull. 

I hadn't gone back to where I'd met her, and I hadn't seen the golden rain.

I lay in bed, my feet hanging over the end getting cold and the rest of me, smothered by my thick duvet, getting hot. But I didn't change my position. It was a test to see how long I could stay still.

Days passed in an endless cycle. I would walk the streets at night and return to the safety of my home in the morning allowing myself a few hours to prepare for the day ahead.

I'd got a new job. Doing the same thing, computer programme reports. In an office block again, this time only thirty-six floors up. But still high enough to feel the building sway on windy days.

It was a windy day when, on my way back from work, I passed the spot. Her spot. I hadn't intended to go there. I'd just put my music on, sunk into the rhythm and walked without any direction. The song was a slow one and I took large steps, striding patiently along. There was someone leaning against the lamppost in the twilight. Her lamppost. I didn't want to see them there, didn't want to meet anyone there, didn't want them to see me. I quickened my pace slipping out of rhythm with the music. I was almost too far away to see a tear roll down his cheek, golden in the streetlights as I'd glanced back. But not quite far enough. 

He was small, being swallowed by his large surroundings. I turned and walked towards him, fumbling with my Walkman to turn off the music. The tear had marked a track down his grubby face and his eyes glinted. I could see him biting his lip in an attempt to halt the welling emotions and I thought back to being in the hospital with my dad.

He had realised I was there and looked up. On his own in the dark: crying. Just like me.

Cloaked in failure.

But the way he looked at me, and the spark in his eyes, he was still hoping. I didn't have the heart to tell him to give up. He didn't need to be like me. I tugged a handkerchief from my pocket and held it out to him.

He smiled slightly and wiped at his tears.


End file.
